Watch Wall Street five experts react to the October jobs report

Nightly Business Report – November 1, 2019

Alternate Unemployment Charts

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.

The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

Not in Labor Force

95,481,000

Series Id: LNS15000000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Not in Labor Force
Labor force status: Not in labor force
Type of data: Number in thousands
Age: 16 years and over

Download:

Year

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

2000

69142

69120

69338

69267

69853

69876

70398

70401

70645

70782

70579

70488

2001

70088

70409

70381

70956

71414

71592

71526

72136

71676

71817

71876

72010

2002

72623

72010

72343

72281

72260

72600

72827

72856

72554

73026

73508

73675

2003

73960

74015

74295

74066

74268

73958

74767

75062

75249

75324

75280

75780

2004

75319

75648

75606

75907

75903

75735

75730

76113

76526

76399

76259

76581

2005

76808

76677

76846

76514

76409

76673

76721

76642

76739

76958

77138

77394

2006

77339

77122

77161

77318

77359

77317

77535

77451

77757

77634

77499

77376

2007

77506

77851

77982

78818

78810

78671

78904

79461

79047

79532

79105

79238

2008

78554

79156

79087

79429

79102

79314

79395

79466

79790

79736

80189

80380

2009

80529

80374

80953

80762

80705

80938

81367

81780

82495

82766

82865

83813

2010

83349

83304

83206

82707

83409

84075

84199

84014

84347

84895

84590

85240

2011

85441

85637

85623

85603

85834

86144

86383

86111

85940

86308

86312

86589

2012

87888

87765

87855

88239

88100

88073

88405

88803

88613

88429

88836

88722

2013

88900

89516

89990

89780

89827

89803

90156

90355

90481

91708

91302

91563

2014

91563

91603

91230

92070

91938

92107

92016

92099

92406

92240

92350

92695

2015

92671

93237

93454

93249

92839

93649

93868

93931

94580

94353

94245

93856

2016

94026

93872

93689

94077

94475

94498

94470

94272

94281

94553

94911

94963

2017

94389

94392

94378

94419

94857

94833

94769

94651

94372

95330

95323

95473

2018

95657

95033

95451

95721

95787

95513

95633

96264

96235

95821

95886

95649

2019

95010

95208

95577

96223

96215

96057

95874

95510

95599

95481

U-6 Unemployment Rate

7.0%

Series Id: LNS13327709
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (seas) Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers
Labor force status: Aggregated totals unemployed
Type of data: Percent or rate
Age: 16 years and over
Percent/rates: Unemployed and mrg attached and pt for econ reas as percent of labor force plus marg attached

Year

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Oct

Nov

Dec

2000

7.1

7.2

7.1

6.9

7.1

7.0

7.0

7.1

7.0

6.8

7.1

6.9

2001

7.3

7.4

7.3

7.4

7.5

7.9

7.8

8.1

8.7

9.3

9.4

9.6

2002

9.5

9.5

9.4

9.7

9.5

9.5

9.6

9.6

9.6

9.6

9.7

9.8

2003

10.0

10.2

10.0

10.2

10.1

10.3

10.3

10.1

10.4

10.2

10.0

9.8

2004

9.9

9.7

10.0

9.6

9.6

9.5

9.5

9.4

9.4

9.7

9.4

9.2

2005

9.3

9.3

9.1

8.9

8.9

9.0

8.8

8.9

9.0

8.7

8.7

8.6

2006

8.4

8.4

8.2

8.1

8.2

8.4

8.5

8.4

8.0

8.2

8.1

7.9

2007

8.4

8.2

8.0

8.2

8.2

8.3

8.4

8.4

8.4

8.4

8.4

8.8

2008

9.2

9.0

9.1

9.2

9.7

10.1

10.5

10.8

11.0

11.8

12.6

13.6

2009

14.2

15.2

15.8

15.9

16.5

16.5

16.4

16.7

16.7

17.1

17.1

17.1

2010

16.7

17.0

17.1

17.1

16.6

16.4

16.4

16.5

16.8

16.6

16.9

16.6

2011

16.2

16.0

15.9

16.1

15.8

16.1

15.9

16.1

16.4

15.8

15.5

15.2

2012

15.2

15.0

14.5

14.6

14.7

14.8

14.8

14.6

14.8

14.4

14.4

14.4

2013

14.6

14.4

13.8

14.0

13.8

14.2

13.8

13.6

13.5

13.6

13.1

13.1

2014

12.7

12.6

12.6

12.3

12.2

12.0

12.1

12.0

11.7

11.5

11.4

11.2

2015

11.3

11.0

10.8

10.8

10.9

10.4

10.3

10.2

10.0

9.8

10.0

9.9

2016

9.8

9.7

9.8

9.7

9.9

9.5

9.7

9.6

9.7

9.6

9.4

9.2

2017

9.3

9.1

8.7

8.6

8.5

8.5

8.5

8.6

8.3

8.0

8.0

8.1

2018

8.2

8.2

7.9

7.8

7.7

7.8

7.5

7.4

7.5

7.5

7.6

7.6

2019

8.1

7.3

7.3

7.3

7.1

7.2

7.0

7.2

6.9

7.0

October job creation comes in at 128,000, easily topping estimates even with GM auto strike

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 128,000 in October, exceeding the estimate of 75,000 from economists surveyed by Dow Jones.

There were big revisions of past numbers as well. August’s initial 168,000 payrolls addition was revised up to 219,000, while September’s jumped from 136,000 to 180,000.

The unemployment rate ticked slightly higher to 3.6% from 3.5%, still near the lowest in 50 years.

The pace of average hourly earnings picked up a bit, rising 0.1% to a year-over-year 3% gain.

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 128,000 in October as the U.S. economy overcame the weight of the GM autoworkers’ strike and created jobs at a pace well above expectations.

Even with a decline of 42,000 in the motor vehicles and parts industry, the pace of new jobs well exceeded the estimate of 75,000 from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The loss of jobs came due to the General Motors strike that has since been settled. That 42,000 job loss itself was less than the 50,000 or more that many economists had been anticipating.

The unemployment rate ticked higher to 3.6%, in line with estimates, but remains around the lowest in 50 years. A more encompassing measure that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons also edged up to 7%.

The unemployment rate for African Americans nudged down to a record low 5.4%. Also, the total employment level as measured in the household survey jumped to 158.5 million, also a new high.

The pace of average hourly earnings picked up a bit, rising 0.1% to a year-over-year 3% gain, also in line with estimates. The average work week was unchanged at 34.4 hours.

“This report is yet another sign that the economy is still strong right now and adds to a list of indicators that are looking optimistic of late,” said Steve Rick, chief economist at CUNA Mutual Group. “The vigor of this labor market, along with a more positive housing market and solid Q3 GDP, should offer some welcome reassurance.”

Big revisions upward

Along with the better-than-expected performance in October, previous months’ counts were revised considerably higher. August’s initial 168,000 estimate came all the way up to 219,000 while September’s jumped from 136,000 to 180,000.

Together, the new estimates added 95,000 positions for the two-month period, bringing the three-month average to 176,000, which is well above the pace needed to keep the unemployment rate around its current level.

For the year, monthly job creation now averages 167,000 compared with 223,000 in 2018.

The report helps further quell worries that the U.S. economy is teetering toward recession and helps affirm the assessment from most Federal Reserve officials.

Central bank leaders have largely praised the state of the U.S. economy, particularly compared with its global peers. The Fed earlier this week lowered its benchmark interest rate a quarter point, the third such move this year, but Chairman Jerome Powell clearly indicated that this likely will be the last cut for some time unless conditions change significantly.

“The October jobs report is unambiguously positive for the US economic outlook,” said Citigroup economist Andrew Hollenhorst. “Above-consensus hiring in October, together with upward revisions to prior months, is consistent with our view that job growth, while clearly slower in 2019 than in 2018, will maintain a pace of 130-150K per month. Wage growth remaining at 3.0% should further support incomes and consumption-led growth.”

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How the unemployment rate is calculated

Hottest sectors

At the industry level, the biggest job creation came in food services and drinking establishments, which added 48,000.While those positions are generally associated with lower wages, they also can reflect consumer demand and the willingness to spend discretionary money. The industry has seen a surge in job creation as of late, with the past three months averaging 38,000 compared with 16,000 in the first seven months of this year.

Professional and business services added 22,000 and health care rose 15,000, part of a gain of 402,000 for that industry over the past year.

Social assistance increased by 20,000 while financial activities rose by 16,000, bringing to 108,000 the total Wall Street jobs added over the past year.

Job losses came in manufacturing (-36,000) as part of the GM strike, and the federal government, which subtracted 17,000 because 20,000 workers hired for Census duties finished their work.

The total employment level in the household survey reached another record high, swelling by 241,000 to 158.5 million.

The labor force expanded by 325,000 to 164.4 million and the labor force participation rate edged higher to 63.3%. Those counted as not in the labor force declined by 118,000 to nearly 95.5 million.

After previously sitting at a record low, the unemployment rate for Asians jumped 0.4 percentage points to 2.9%.

private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 4 cents to $23.70.
(See tables B-3 and B-8.)
The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged
at 34.4 hours in October. In manufacturing, the average workweek decreased by
0.2 hour to 40.3 hours, while overtime was unchanged at 3.2 hours. The average
workweek of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees held at 33.6
hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for August was revised up by 51,000
from +168,000 to +219,000, and the change for September was revised up by 44,000
from +136,000 to +180,000. With these revisions, employment gains in August and
September combined were 95,000 more than previously reported. (Monthly revisions
result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies
since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors.)
After revisions, job gains have averaged 176,000 over the last 3 months.
_____________
The Employment Situation for November is scheduled to be released on
Friday, December 6, 2019, at 8:30 a.m. (EST).

– Over-the-month changes are not displayed for not seasonally adjusted data.
NOTE: Persons whose ethnicity is identified as Hispanic or Latino may be of any race. Detail for the seasonally adjusted data shown in this table will not necessarily add to totals because of the independent seasonal adjustment of the various series. Updated population controls are introduced annually with the release of January data.

Footnotes
(1) Includes other industries, not shown separately.
(2) Data relate to production employees in mining and logging and manufacturing, construction employees in construction, and nonsupervisory employees in the service-providing industries.
(3) The indexes of aggregate weekly hours are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate hours by the corresponding annual average aggregate hours.
(4) The indexes of aggregate weekly payrolls are calculated by dividing the current month’s estimates of aggregate weekly payrolls by the corresponding annual average aggregate weekly payrolls.
(5) Figures are the percent of industries with employment increasing plus one-half of the industries with unchanged employment, where 50 percent indicates an equal balance between industries with increasing and decreasing employment.
(P) Preliminary

NOTE: Data have been revised to reflect March 2018 benchmark levels and updated seasonal adjustment factors.

Story 3: The Decline of United States Monetary Base Could Lead to Massive Deflation and Recession? — What Institutions are The Fed Bailing Out? — Videos

FED INJECTS $211B INTO THE REPO MARKET IN 2 DAYS!

What’s Behind the Fed’s Bailout of the Repo Market?

Keiser Report: What is the Fed hiding? (E1457)

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max and Stacy discuss the fact that the massive daily NY Fed interventions in the repo market are getting worse and worse. What was meant to be small and temporary seems now to be huge and permanent. Investors are asking, “What is the Fed hiding?” They also look at the 23% decline in the U.S. Monetary Base since 2016 and ask whether or not it signifies anything. In the second half, Max talks to David Morgan of The Morgan Report about what he sees in the turmoil in the repo markets. They also discuss China’s gold purchases and whether or not he agrees with Alasdair MacLeod’s belief that China could announce they have more than 10,000 tons of gold.

What is the repo market and why is Wall Street worried?

Opinion: The Federal Reserve is in stealth intervention mode

What the central bank passes off as ‘funding issues’ could more accurately be described as liquidity injections to keep interest rates low

Getty Images

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell

By SVENHENRICH

The Federal Reserve has gone into full intervention mode.

Actually, accelerated intervention mode. Not just a “mid-cycle adjustment,” as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in July, but interventions to the tune of tens of billions of dollars every day.

What’s the crisis, you ask? After all, we live in an age of trillion-dollar market-cap companies and unemployment at 50-year lows. Yet the Fed is acting like the doomsday clock has melted as a result of a nuclear attack.

Something’s off. See, it all started as a temporary fix in September when, suddenly, the overnight target rate jumped sky high and the Fed had to intervene to keep the wheels from coming off. Short-term liquidity issues, the Fed said. Those have become rather permanent:

And liquidity injections are massive and accelerating. On Tuesday, the Fed injected $99.9 billion in temporary liquidity into the financial system and $7.5 billion in permanent reserves as part of a program to buy $60 billion a month in Treasury bills. The $99.9 billion comes from $64.9 billion in overnight repurchase agreements and $35 billion in repo operations.

But market demand for overnight repo operations has far exceeded even the $75 billion the Fed has allocated, suggesting a lot more liquidity demand. Hence, on Wednesday the Fed suddenly announced a $45 billion increase on top of the $75 billion repo facility for a daily total of $120 billion. Here’s the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the branch involved in such actions:

“Consistent with the most recent FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] directive, to ensure that the supply of reserves remains ample even during periods of sharp increases in non-reserve liabilities, and to mitigate the risk of money market pressures that could adversely affect policy implementation, the amount offered in overnight repo operations will increase to at least $120 billion starting Thursday, Oct. 24, 2019.”

These actions are surprising. What stable financial system requires over $100 billion in overnight liquidity injections? The Fed did not see the need for these actions coming. It is reacting to a market that suddenly requires it.

“Funding issues,” Chairman Powell called it in October. The Fed was totally caught off guard when the overnight financing rate suddenly jumped to over 5%, and it’s been reacting ever since.

What started as a slow walk in policy reversion from last year’s rate-hike cycle and balance-sheet roll-off (aka quantitative tightening, or QT) on autopilot has now turned into ongoing interest-rate cuts and balance-sheet expansion:

To be clear: This is not a temporary rise in the balance sheet; this is the beginning of something big. The Fed’s balance sheet looks like it will expand to record highs once again.

I keep questioning the efficacy of all this, and I have to question the honesty of the Fed. After all, the central bank keeps chasing events, and its policy actions are turning ever more aggressive while it insists that everything is fine. The bank’s actions are saying things are not fine. Far from it. Otherwise, the Fed wouldn’t be forced into all these policy actions. But would the Fed cop to things not being fine? To do so would be to sap confidence — can’t have that.

What would markets look like without these policy interventions? One can only wonder. For one, we know the overnight financing rate would be much higher. That is, after all, why the Fed is forced to intervene: To keep the target rate low.

Many analysts now suggest there will be a year-end stock market rally, primarily driven by the Fed as earnings growth remains weak. If they print, you must buy.

It may well be that our financial markets have permanently devolved into a Fed-subsidized, wealth-inequality-generating machine benefitting the few that own stocks. But one has to wonder why the rate cutting and liquidity injections haven’t been able to produce sustained market highs.

Consider the evolution of the Fed’s “put” in 2019:

First came the hints in January. “Flexible on the balance sheet,” Powell suddenly was uttering following the fourth-quarter 2018 stock market massacre, producing a 3.5% rally in one day on that pronouncement. Then we got treated to a multi-month jawboning of Fed speakers increasingly sending dovish messages, and markets gladly jumping from Fed speech to Fed speech. Powell again rescued the market in early June after May’s market rout. “Ready to act” was the rallying cry then — and the market rallied dutifully into the July rate cut.

But then the dynamics changed. Rate cut No. 1 in July was sold. Rate cut No. 2 in September was sold. Then came the repo operations, also in September. And now, in October, the Fed launched the $60 billion-a-month Treasury-bill-buying program.

Did you note the accelerated pace of Fed actions here? The Fed went from pausing rate increases to ending the balance sheet roll-off to multiple rate cuts and, finally, aggressive daily repos and balance-sheet expansion. All of this since July. And guess what? Another rate cut is coming next week.

Why? Because markets want it. And what markets want, markets shall receive. That’s the only data point that matters, it appears.

And markets really want that third rate cut next week:

There’s a 94.6% probability of a rate cut. Think that a Fed that is intervening in markets daily by the tens of billions of dollars will chance to disappoint markets by not cutting rates? Please.

Investors have been chasing the Fed into corporate multiple expansion all year. But now that the Fed is forced to intervene ever more aggressively, it has to prove something: Efficacy.

Are we seeing an improvement in growth? No. Are we seeing an improvement in earnings? No. From the looks of it, the Fed is barely keeping it together and is forced to do ever more to prevent markets from falling as the principal bull rationale for buying stocks is the Fed.

And so one has to ponder a larger question:

Sven Henrich

✔@NorthmanTrader

I’ll go out on a limb here, but a financial system that requires over $100B of liquidity injections every day, temporary, permanent or otherwise, has major issues.

But, to be fair, so far the Fed has succeeded in compressing volatility as price discovery has degraded to overnight action over any intraday price discovery. Markets are back to tight intra-ranges void of any actions and elevating indices near record highs.

Whether the Fed can prompt a move to sustained new highs remains to be seen. All eyes will be on the Fed next week to see whether policy makers can achieve it.

If they can, investors can look for another run at the upper trend line on the S&P 500 SPX, -0.12% chart:

If they can’t, things may turn out quite differently, such as this speculative scenario:

You don’t think the Fed is all about markets? Where have you been? After all, the Fed’s stated policy objective now is to extend the business cycle by any means necessary. And policy makers can’t do that with falling stock prices.

And so they are in accelerated daily intervention mode. Because that is what it takes. The questions that investors have to ask themselves is: What if it’s not enough? And what is it policy makers aren’t telling us? Why are they are forced into these historic, unexpected measures? What happens if they lose control? We may know more next week.

In connection with these authorizations, the Desk intends to conduct one small value forward-settling repo and one small value reverse repo operation during the month of November. Each operation will begin around 9:45 AM ET and end at 10:00 AM ET. The operations will be open to Primary Dealers and/or Reverse Repo Counterparties. All counterparties will be limited to one $1 million proposition per tranche during each operation. The planned schedule, including operation details, follows below:

Repurchase Agreement Operation:

OPERATION TENOR/TYPE

ELIGIBLE COUNTERPARTIES

OPERATION DATE

SETTLEMENT DATE

MATURITY DATE

COLLATERAL TYPE

MAXIMUM VALUE OF OPERATION

Term Repo

Primary Dealers

Tues, Nov 5, 2019

Wed, Nov 6, 2019

Fri, Nov 8, 2019

Multi-tranche: Treasury, Agency, Agency MBS

$75 million

Reverse Repurchase Agreement Operation:

OPERATION TENOR/TYPE

ELIGIBLE COUNTERPARTIES

OPERATION DATE

SETTLEMENT DATE

MATURITY DATE

COLLATERAL TYPE

OFFERING RATE

MAXIMUM VALUE OF OPERATION

Term Reverse Repo

Primary Dealers and Reverse Repo Counterparties

Tues, Nov 19, 2019

Tues, Nov 19, 2019

Thu, Nov 21, 2019

Single-tranche: Agency MBS -only

ON RRP Offering Rate on Nov 19

$175 million

Announcements and results will be posted on the New York Fed’s website at the start and following the completion of each operation.

Monetary Base

What is Monetary Base

A monetary base is the total amount of a currency that is either in general circulation in the hands of the public or in the commercial bank deposits held in the central bank’s reserves. This measure of the money supply typically only includes the most liquid currencies; it is also known as the “money base.”

Breaking Down Monetary Base

The monetary base is a component of a nation’s money supply. It refers strictly to highly liquid funds including notes, coinage and current bank deposits. When the Federal Reserve creates new funds to purchase bonds from commercial banks, the banks see an increase in their holdings, which causes the monetary base to expand.

For example, country Z has 600 million currency units circulating in the public and its central bank has 10 billion currency units in reserve as part of deposits from many commercial banks. In this case, the monetary base for country Z is 10.6 billion currency units.

As of June 2016, the U.S. had a monetary base of almost $3.9 trillion.

Monetary Base and the Money Supply

The money supply expands beyond the monetary base to include other assets that may be less liquid in form. It is most commonly divided into levels, listed as M0 through M3 or M4 depending on the system, with each representing a different facet of a nation’s assets. The monetary base’s funds are generally held within the lower levels of the money supply, such as M1 or M2, which encompasses cash in circulation and specific liquid assets including, but not limited to, savings and checking accounts.

To qualify, the funds must be considered a final settlement of a transaction. For example, if a person uses cash to pay a debt, that transaction is final. Additionally, writing a check against money in a checking account, or using a debit card, can also be considered final since the transaction is backed by actual cash deposits once they have cleared.

In contrast, the use of credit to pay a debt does not qualify as part of the monetary base, as this is not the final step to the transaction. This is due to the fact the use of credit just transfers a debt owed from one party, the person or business receiving the credit-based payment and the credit issuer.

Managing Monetary Bases

Most monetary bases are controlled by one national institution, usually a country’s central bank. They can usually change the monetary base (either expanding or contracting) through open market operations or monetary policies.

For many countries, the government can maintain a measure of control over the monetary base by buying and selling government bonds in the open market.

Smaller Scale Monetary Bases and Money Supplies

At the household level, the monetary base consists of all notes and coins in the possession of the household, as well as any funds in deposit accounts. The money supply of a household may be extended to include any available credit open on credit cards, unused portions of lines of credit and other accessible funds that translate into a debt that must be repaid.

Story 4: Listen To Reading and Read The Transcript of Call Between President Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky — Videos

The Phone Call Memo Between Trump And Ukraine (Full Reading)

The Democratic-controlled House has called for a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. The inquiry comes on the heels of a whistleblower complaint about a phone call exchange between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In response, on September 25th, the White House released a memo it says summarizes the phone call in question.

Story 4: Creepy Sleepy Dopey Joey BidenDoes Not Get It — Lying Will Not Work — Ukraine Government Interfered in 2016 Election For Hillary Clinton — Democrats Colluding with Ukraine Government — Videos —

MOSCOW — A court in Ukraine has ruled that officials in the country violated the law by revealing, during the 2016 presidential election in the United States, details of suspected illegal payments to Paul Manafort.

In 2016, while Mr. Manafort was chairman of the Trump campaign, anti-corruption prosecutors in Ukraine disclosed that a pro-Russian political party had earmarked payments for Mr. Manafort from an illegal slush fund. Mr. Manafort resigned from the campaign a week later.

The court’s ruling that what the prosecutors did was illegal comes as the Ukrainian government, which is deeply reliant on the United States for financial and military aid, has sought to distance itself from matters related to the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential race.

Some of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has dealt with Mr. Manafort’s decade of work in Ukraine advising the country’s Russia-aligned former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych, his party and the oligarchs behind it.

After President Trump’s victory, some politicians in Ukraine criticized the public release by prosecutors of the slush fund records, saying the move would complicate Ukraine’s relations with the Trump administration.

In Ukraine, investigations into the payments marked for Mr. Manafort were halted for a time and never led to indictments. Mr. Manafort’s conviction in the United States on financial fraud charges related to his work in Ukraine was not based on any known legal assistance from Ukraine.

Two Ukrainian members of Parliament had pressed for investigations into whether the prosecutors’ revelation of the payment records, which were first published in The New York Times, had violated Ukrainian laws that, in some cases, prohibit prosecutors from revealing evidence before a trial.

Both lawmakers asserted that if the release of the slush fund information broke the law, then it should be viewed as an illegal effort to influence the United States presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton by damaging the Trump campaign.

Artem Sytnik, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, said he had revealed the information about Paul Manafort “in accordance with the law in effect at the time.”Credit…Oleksandr Stashevskyi/Associated Press

The Kiev District Administrative Court, in a statement issued Wednesday, said that Artem Sytnik, the head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, the agency that had released information about the payments, had violated the law. The court’s statement said this violation “resulted in meddling in the electoral process of the United States in 2016 and damaged the national interests of Ukraine.”

A spokeswoman for the anti-corruption bureau said she could not comment before the court released a full text of the ruling. In an interview last June, Mr. Sytnik said he had revealed the information “in accordance with the law in effect at the time.”

The court also faulted a member of Ukraine’s Parliament, Serhiy A. Leshchenko, who had commented on Mr. Manafort’s case and publicized at a news conference materials that the anti-corruption bureau had already posted on its website.

Mr. Leshchenko said he would appeal the ruling, and that the court was not independent and was doing the bidding of the Ukrainian government as it sought to curry favor with the Trump administration.

“This decision of the court is for Poroshenko to find a way to Trump’s heart,” he said, referring to President Petro O. Poroshenko. “At the next meeting with Trump, he will say, ‘You know, an independent Ukrainian court decided investigators made an inappropriate move.’ He will find the loyalty of the Trump administration.”

Mr. Leshchenko said the prosecutors’ revelations about Mr. Manafort were legal because they were “public interest information,” even if they were also potential evidence in a criminal investigation.

Mr. Manafort has not been charged with a crime in Ukraine, and earlier this year, Ukrainian officials froze several investigations into Mr. Manafort’s payments at a time when the government was negotiating with the Trump administration to purchase sophisticated anti-tank missiles, called Javelins.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general said the delay on Mr. Manafort’s cases was unrelated to the missile negotiations. In total, the United States provides about $600 million in bilateral aid to Ukraine annually.

Earlier this month, the special counsel accused Mr. Manafort of violating a cooperation agreement by lying. Two of the five alleged lies, according to the filing, related to meetings or conversations with Konstantin V. Kilimnik, Mr. Manafort’s former office manager in Kiev, whom the special counsel’s office has identified as tied to Russian intelligence and as a key figure in the investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Ukrainian law enforcement officials last year allowed Mr. Kilimnik to leave for Russia, putting him out of reach for questioning.

Let’s get real: Democrats were first to enlist Ukraine in US elections

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Earlier this month, during a bipartisan meeting in Kiev, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) delivered a pointed message to Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

While choosing his words carefully, Murphy made clear — by his own account — that Ukraine currently enjoyed bipartisan support for its U.S. aid but that could be jeopardized if the new president acquiesced to requests by President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani to investigate past corruption allegations involving Americans, including former Vice President Joe Biden’s family.

Murphy boasted after the meeting that he told the new Ukrainian leader that U.S. aid was his country’s “most important asset” and it would be viewed as election meddling and “disastrous for long-term U.S.-Ukraine relations” to bend to the wishes of Trump and Giuliani.

“I told Zelensky that he should not insert himself or his government into American politics. I cautioned him that complying with the demands of the President’s campaign representatives to investigate a political rival of the President would gravely damage the U.S.-Ukraine relationship. There are few things that Republicans and Democrats agree on in Washington these days, and support for Ukraine is one of them,” Murphy told me today, confirming what he told Ukraine’s leader.

The implied message did not require an interpreter for Zelensky to understand: Investigate the Ukraine dealings of Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and you jeopardize Democrats’ support for future U.S. aid to Kiev.

The Murphy anecdote is a powerful reminder that, since at least 2016, Democrats repeatedly have exerted pressure on Ukraine, a key U.S. ally for buffering Russia, to meddle in U.S. politics and elections.

And that activity long preceded Giuliani’s discussions with Ukrainian officials and Trump’s phone call to Zelensky in July, seeking to have Ukraine formally investigate whether then-Vice President Joe Biden used a threat of canceling foreign aid to shut down an investigation into $3 million routed to the U.S. firm run by Biden’s son.

As I have reported, the pressure began at least as early as January 2016, when the Obama White House unexpectedly invited Ukraine’s top prosecutors to Washington to discuss fighting corruption in the country.

The meeting, promised as training, turned out to be more of a pretext for the Obama administration to pressure Ukraine’s prosecutors to drop an investigation into the Burisma Holdings gas company that employed Hunter Biden and to look for new evidence in a then-dormant criminal case against eventual Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a GOP lobbyist.

U.S. officials “kept talking about how important it was that all of our anti-corruption efforts be united,” said Andrii Telizhenko, the former political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington who organized and attended the meetings.

Nazar Kholodnytsky, Ukraine’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor, told me that, soon after he returned from the Washington meeting, he saw evidence in Ukraine of political meddling in the U.S. election. That’s when two top Ukrainian officials released secret evidence to the American media, smearing Manafort.

The release of the evidence forced Manafort to step down as Trump’s top campaign adviser. A Ukrainian court concluded last December that the release of the evidence amounted to an unlawful intervention in the U.S. election by Kiev’s government, although that ruling has since been overturned on a technicality.

Shortly after the Ukrainian prosecutors returned from their Washington meeting, a new round of Democratic pressure was exerted on Ukraine — this time via its embassy in Washington.

Valeriy Chaly, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United States at the time, confirmed to me in a statement issued by his office that, in March 2016, a contractor for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) pressed his embassy to try to find any Russian dirt on Trump and Manafort that might reside in Ukraine’s intelligence files.

The DNC contractor also asked Chaly’s team to try to persuade Ukraine’s president at the time, Petro Poroshenko, to make a statement disparaging Manafort when the Ukrainian leader visited the United States during the 2016 election.

Chaly said his embassy rebuffed both requests because it recognized they were improper efforts to get a foreign government to try to influence the election against Trump and for Hillary Clinton.

The political pressure continued. Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in crucial U.S. aid to Kiev if Poroshenko did not fire the country’s chief prosecutor. Ukraine would have been bankrupted without the aid, so Poroshenko obliged on March 29, 2016, and fired Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.

What wasn’t known at the time, Shokin told me recently, was that Ukrainian prosecutors were preparing a request to interview Hunter Biden about his activities and the monies he was receiving from Ukraine. If such an interview became public during the middle of the 2016 election, it could have had enormous negative implications for Democrats.

Democrats continued to tap Ukraine for Trump dirt throughout the 2016 election, my reporting shows.

Nellie Ohr, the wife of senior U.S. Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, worked in 2016 as a contractor for Fusion GPS, the same Hillary Clinton–funded opposition research firm that hired Christopher Steele, the British spy who wrote the now-debunked dossier linking Trump to Russia collusion.

Nellie Ohr testified to Congress that some of the dirt she found on Trump during her 2016 election opposition research came from a Ukrainian parliament member. She also said that she eventually took the information to the FBI through her husband — another way Ukraine got inserted into the 2016 election.

Politics. Pressure. Opposition research. All were part of the Democrats’ playbook on Ukraine long before Trump ever called Zelensky this summer. And as Sen. Murphy’s foray earlier this month shows, it hasn’t stopped.

The evidence is so expansive as to strain the credulity of the Democrats’ current outrage at Trump’s behavior with Ukraine.

Which raises a question: Could it be the Ukraine tale currently being weaved by Democrats and their allies in the media is nothing more than a smoke screen designed to distract us from the forthcoming Justice Department inspector general report into abuses during the Democratic-inspired Russia collusion probe?

It’s a question worth asking.

John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work over the years has exposed U.S. and FBI intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal scientists’ misuse of foster children and veterans in drug experiments, and numerous cases of political corruption. He serves as an investigative columnist and executive vice president for video at The Hill. Follow him on Twitter @jsolomonReports.